CSBG Archive

Thank You, DC, for the Final Crisis HC

I have to give DC Comics a lot of credit. They made what I (and many other people, including the writer of the comic himself) felt was a bad decision when they announced that the Final Crisis hardcover would not include the Superman: Beyond two-parter that ended up being almost absolutely essential to the final story (not absolutely essential, but close to it).

They have now fixed their original mistake, and the Final Crisis hardcover WILL include the Superman: Beyond two-parter AND the Final Crisis: Submit one-shot. The only part missing now is the Last Rites Batman two-parter, and that’s far from essential reading (and it was already reprinted in the Batman R.I.P. hardcover)

38 Comments

Rohan Williams

It’s a very cool move on DC’s part. I actually wasn’t going to buy the Hardcover before (by leaving out S:B and Submit, it’s like they were flagging an Absolute edition), but it’s a must-have now, isn’t it?

Jbird

Good, because it would have been incredibly stupid for them to do otherwise. Imagine picking up that trade as someone in five years who’d never read this event and trying to figure out what the hell was going on during the last half of the last book.

Cove West

Unfortunately, now that they’re offering the complete FINAL CRISIS experience, DC is now going to be charging readers the experience of a complete final crisis: $85,271.00 (plus tax), your left eyeball (for the 3-D, you understand), and supplementary annotations that can only be revealed after Grant Morrison has a threesome with your wife’s skull and a cartoon coyote. And now all copies come with the final nine pages ripped out and replaced with a life-sized foldout advertisement for FINAL CRISIS: SECRET ENDING — THE SEARCH FOR MORE MONEY (“coming soon, June 2003!”).

Sat

Considering that the Big Bad Guy that showed up at the end of Final Crisis was only seen prior to that in Superman: Beyond, I’d say it’s not “almost” absolutely essential, it’s absolutely essential, no almost about it.

Carl

Sluggo

What’s the source for this? I see the listing on Amazon has upped the page count and the price by five bucks, but there are no details about what exactly is collected. And has been mentioned, DC’s website still has the old version.

Also, I read a few issues of Grant Morrison’s Batman run in the beginning, but lost interest. I’m thinking of picking up the RIP HC. Will I be completely lost or can I just jump in there?

The only Morrison bat-story that struck me as required reading for R.I.P. was Club of Heroes, which is also quite good. It helps to generally understand who Talia and Damian are, too, but if you’re on the comics internet that’s probably not an issue. Some people point to Batman 666 as necessary to “getting” the ending, but that involves a reading of it that I personally don’t find convincing.

Paperghost

I’m still not sure how Last Rites isn’t essential to the HC – without it, Batman is just suddenly running around with a gun with no indication whatsoever as to how he escaped in the first place. I thought the Last Rites story was a real good one and really drove home the struggle of his eventual escape – a real shame if its missing.

DubipR

Paperghost writes:
“I’m still not sure how Last Rites isn’t essential to the HC – without it, Batman is just suddenly running around with a gun with no indication whatsoever as to how he escaped in the first place. I thought the Last Rites story was a real good one and really drove home the struggle of his eventual escape – a real shame if its missing.”

Last Rites falls inbetween Final Crisis 5 and 6, telling what happened between Batman’s capture. It fits perfectly in there. Read FC in the order Grant told you to and the story unfolds better than you’ll ever imagine!

I also have to say that if you’ve read Last Rites and know what Batman went through before he confronted Darkseid, it makes a lot more sense that the gun control superhero was willing to just shoot the guy. I get the feeling DC wants everybody who wants those issues to run out and buy the R.I.P collection, though…

Paperghost

“Last Rites falls inbetween Final Crisis 5 and 6, telling what happened between Batman’s capture. It fits perfectly in there. Read FC in the order Grant told you to and the story unfolds better than you’ll ever imagine!”

Uh…..yeah, I know that, hence “really drove home the struggle of his escape”. My whole point was that it *needs* to be in the HC or else batman running round with a gun makes no sense.

Grant Morrison has mentioned an intended reading order for all of the Final Crisis stuff he wrote in interviews. If DC’s smart, they’ll collect the stories in the FC hardcover according to that. I believe the Morrison reading order would put Superman Beyond 3D between two issues of the main FC series, fairly early on.

Blackjak

OK. I have to ask.. Where can I find the intended reading order? I’ve got all the singles (inc. Last Rites) and was planning on re-reading the whole lot in one swoop this weekend.. (though I was also going to include Requiem and Resist…)
Anybody?

Sluggo

Brian Cronin

As you mentioned, the page count went up by the page-count of SB #1-2 and Submit (and the price went up five bucks) while DC just re-solicited the Final Crisis Companion with SB #1-2 and Submit removed.

Sluggo

Well, I’ll feel a whole lot more comfortable pre-ordering the hardcover once I know for sure this is what’s happening. DC needs to do a press release changing the solicitation to clarify. Until then, it’s just supposition and conjecture.